Electrical CAD videos:

Electrical design drawing standards

Not everybody realizes how strict the EU electrical design drawing standards are - or that the requirements are being rigorously applied now in the European Union. It is hard to see a way out of getting an electrical design software, that makes it easy to meet the electrical design drawing standards.

“The latest European Union requirements within electrical documentation have been tightened so much, that you almost have to be a professor to document correctly. The ordinary electrician does not stand a chance to do so without being supported propperly,” says Ove Larsen, CEO in PCSCHEMATIC, the developers of Denmark’s best selling electrical design software, PCSCHEMATIC Automation.

The CAD software handles the
electrical drawing standards

And it is not just for fun that you have
to document correctly. The latest tightening
up of the EU standards has implied
that you can no longer have your machines
CE-approved, when the documentation
does not meet the EU electrical drawing standards.
Therefore, Ove Larsen has automatic
support of IEC/EN/ISO norms and standards
as a top priority during the development
of the electrical design software, PCSCHEMATIC Automation.

Intelligent support of Reference
Designations

“To the horror of most electricians,”
Ove Larsen continues, “it has now
become mandatory to use reference designations
for structuring the electrical
documentation. The good news is, however,
that it is not so hard to grasp the
general concept behind reference designations,
and that the program contains
facilities, which makes following the international
standards easy.”

You almost have to be a professor to create correct electrical documentation
these days, without using a good electrical design software- Ove Larsen, CEO

The scope of the reference designations
can be for entire project pages, as well
as for selected areas within the pages.
The consequences this might have for
symbol names in areas with reference
designations, are handled automatically
by the program.

Division in Chapters for better
Survey

At the same time Ove Larsen has
emphasized creating a set of frames,
which makes it possible to better structure
comprehensive documentation. It
is possible to divide projects into chapters,
and to create separate tables of
contents for each individual chapter
automatically. Furthermore, the built-in
explorer window makes it possible to
click your way to each individual component
on the pages. This can be done
easily due to the fact that all parts of
the electrical documentation are gathered
together in the same file.

Naming of Symbols due to
current EN/IEC/ISO Standards

“During the installation of PCSCHEMATIC
Automation, you will see that there
are both created an EN60617 and an
DB60617 symbol library,” Ove Larsen explains. “This is because we
wish to be as clear as possible as regarding
what is standard symbols.
Therefore, the symbols in the EN60617
library, are symbols described in the standard. The symbols in the DB60617
library, are not directly described in the
standard - such as compound symbols.
However, these symbols are created
according to the directions described
in the standard. In other words, this is
what the symbols would have looked
like, if they had been described directly
in the standard.

Furthermore, it is possible to control the
letter code directly from the component
vendor databases for the program.

Following the standards when Copying Areas

With respect to the naming of terminals,
detailed rules have now been specified
for how to name/number the terminals.
Therefore you have to name/number
motor terminals and supply terminals as
well as input and output terminals following
different principles.

When copying an area the program first examines whether it has been drawn
according to the new rules in EN60204-1,14.2.1 for naming of conductors and
terminals. When this is the case, the program
analyses which types of terminals
it contains, and renames them according
to their type. Because
no gap in the numbering is allowed, the
program simultaneously keeps track of
which names/numbers have been applied
for the various types of terminals.

When copying an area the program first examines whether it has been drawn
according to the new rules in EN60204-1,14.2.1 for naming of conductors and
terminals.
When this is the case, the program analyses which types of terminals
it contains, and renames them according to their type.

When the copied area contains wire
numbers, the copy is assigned the next
available wire numbers - following the
overall principle you have chosen for
the wire numbering in the program. The
applied reference designations and current
path numbering are also taken into
consideration.

Mounting correct drawing and
Genuine wire numbering

According to the directions in EN61082-3, the documentation can be created as
power control circuit diagrams or mounting
correct drawing. “Unfortunately the
fact is,” says Ove Larsen, “that you
cannot make a program correct a project
to become drawn mounting correct automatically.
But PCSCHEMATIC can warn you when you draw something which
is not mounting correct. Also, the program
can detect the parts of existing
projects which are not drawn mounting
correct. You can then draw these parts
mounting correct by yourself.”

“Furthermore, it is both allowed to use
wire numbering and potential numbering.
Because all wires must be uniquely
identified, it is not sufficient only to apply potential wire numbering”,
Ove Larsen emphasizes. It is therefore
recommended to use real wire numbering,
which is supported by the program
automatically. Colour codes for
cable wires and automatic potential
numbering is also an option, so the program
supports all approved types of wire
identification.

Genuine Graphical Cable and
Terminal Plans

Quite a few electrical design softwares advertise
that they create graphical cable and terminal
plans, but when you have a closer
look, they turn out to be no more than
cable and terminal lists. This is no longer
sufficient according to the most recent
EU standards.

PCSCHEMATIC Automation can therefore
create genuine cable and terminal
plans, which also can be updated automatically.
The users of the program can
set up for themselves the parameters for
creating the plans, and then let the program
do the remaining hard work.

However, you might have to make a few
cosmetic changes after creating the
plans. This is because it is not possible
to create programming routines which
foresees all possible situations. But
Ove Larsen finds that 99 percent is
perfectly possible.
When you make subsequent changes
in the documentation, the graphical cable
and terminal plans can also be updated
with these changes.

Follow
the international electrical standards Easily

“From a general perspective it is not
possible to create a program, which automatically follows all the norms and
standards in the documentation. It requires
that the user of the program also
has some knowledge of the norms. For
this user, I am confident we have created
a program, which makes it as easy
as possible to follow the European and international electrical design drawing standards.”

Book about electrical design drawing standards

To make it possible for interested users
to get detailed knowledge about electrical norms
and drawing standards, PCSCHEMATIC has
created the book “Electrical
documentation according to Standards” in cooperation
with a board of professionals.
The book is written by Jørgen Sommer from
PCSCHEMATIC, and the English version
has been available since 2004, and has been updated when necessary.
The book is also available in Danish,
Czech and Polish.

“So, as you can see, we do everything
we can, to make it as easy as possible
to follow the international and European electrical design drawing standards”, Ove Larsen finishes.